Madness

           In the opening scene of Apocalypse Now you can see the major theme of the movie, destruction of something peaceful.  It follows by a clip of Captain Willard in his room while on rest time from the war.  While he aimlessly walks about his room, you hear his voice say, "When I was there all I could think about was not being there, and when I was there all I could think about was getting back to the war."  At this point in the movie you can already notice the psychological strain the war has put on Captain Willard.  The madness yet to be revealed seems to be the mission Captain is sent on to arrest(kill) a fellow American Captain who has gone AWOL.  Captain goes on to say, "Soldiers sent after soldiers who go crazy, how many people have I killed, this time an American.  Charging a man with murder in this place is like trying to give a speeding ticket at Indy 500."  This is where you can see the correlations between O'Brien's writing and the movie, a true war story is one that when heard can't be believed.  War is misconception.
     A soldier of madness Captain comes across can be seen when assaulting a beach so that Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore can surf.  As they fly in by helicopters LC starts playing classical music to psychologically attack the small enemy force held up on a wooden post city on the river.  The town is obliterated and soldiers, along with innocent civilians are killed.  He evens goes as far as calling in an airstrike to napalm the village, he afterwards says, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."  Just so the LC and a few others could surf.  The sheer insanity of war can be seen as Captain Willard embarks on his journey of madness, meeting progressively madder people as he nears the maddest of them all, Colonel Kurtz, all the while becoming more and more mad himself.